There is a new renaissance in horror, you say? Excuse me while I roll over and go back to sleep.<\/p>\n
One can easily understand the cynicism. There\u2019s always a renaissance in horror. The slasher movie in the 1970s. The self-referential vibe that began with Scream in the 1990s. The elevated horror \u2013 \u201celevated\u201d is a word no film-maker enjoyed \u2013 exemplified by Hereditary in the 2010s. Appropriately enough, the genre is always rising from the grave in differently appalling bloodied garments.<\/p>\n
This time it really might be different. The extraordinary critical and box-office success of Curry Barker\u2019s film Obsession<\/a> \u2013 five stars from your soaraway Irish Times \u2013 cannot be easily dismissed. Kane Parsons\u2019s Backrooms, opening this weekend, looks set to do almost as well with pundits and public. <\/p>\n This comes on the back of buzzy hits by the likes of Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) and the incorrigible Philippou twins, from Australia. In an irony that most sensible satirists would reject as too on the nose, the kids from YouTube look set to become the saviours of theatrical exhibition.<\/p>\n Made for less than $1 million, Obsession stars Michael Johnston as a young man who, in the spirit of WW Jacobs\u2019s durable story The Monkey\u2019s Paw, makes an irresponsible wish on a possessed geegaw. His old pal, played by a stunningly good Inde Navarrette<\/a>, becomes, alas, more romantically obsessed than he had bargained for. Murderous jealousy ensues.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Obsession: The best US horror film of the 2020s \u2013 starring a ringer for Paul MescalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n The film landed with a hugely impressive $17.2 million on its North American opening, eventually passing out Michael<\/a> and The Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a> to top the daily box-office chart. <\/p>\n The following weekend Obsession did something that is close to unprecedented: it made more than on debut. That $23.9 million (rising to $30.2 million over the Memorial Day holiday) marked a 39 per cent increase on the first weekend. <\/p>\n For entertainment journalists, this is, to use an analogy from physics, as if some boffin had found an exception to the second law of thermodynamics. Maybe entropy does not always increase over time.<\/p>\n \u201cObsession is the only wide-release horror film on record to grow in its second weekend at this scale,\u201d Jason Blum, chief executive of Blumhouse, Obsession\u2019s distributor, remarked. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t happen in horror.\u201d It almost never happens in any genre.<\/p>\n Over the past decade or so the film industry has, at the blockbuster level, eaten itself alive in its compulsion to give the public only what the studio thinks that public already knows it wants. Hence the reliance on superheroes, musical biopics and legacy sequels. <\/p>\n The building success of Obsession speaks to the old-fashioned power of strong reviews and stronger word of mouth. <\/p>\n Backrooms<\/a>, starring Renate Reinsve<\/a> as a therapist searching for Chiwetel Ejiofor<\/a> through eerily nested interiors, has been accumulating similarly frenetic buzz.<\/p>\n If you need confirmation that Barker and Parsons have hit a chord you need only look at the wave of petty jealousy that has broken out on social media. Over the past week or so a conspiracy theory has grown that neither young man \u2013 Barker is 26, Parsons is 21 \u2013 could possibly have directed such accomplished movies without assistance from senior film-makers.<\/p>\n The speculation got to such absurd heights that Mark Duplass<\/a>, a star of Backrooms, felt the need to clarify. \u201cI don\u2019t remember seeing you on set,\u201d he replied to a sceptical X post. \u201cWhen I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More so than many directors 3x his age.\u201d <\/p>\n Hmmm, with all due respect I don’t remember seeing you on set. When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More so than many directors 3x his age. https:\/\/t.co\/GXQsI5jxG0<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Mark Duplass (@MarkDuplass) May 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Steven Spielberg<\/a> was 27 when he made Jaws. Orson Welles<\/a> was 25 when he made Citizen Kane. Just saying.<\/p>\n Of course, the two men are, considering their age, already impressively experienced. Parsons originally developed Backrooms \u2013 an emanation of the unsettling \u201ccreepypasta\u201d genre \u2013 as a series on YouTube. Barker\u2019s first feature, the found-footage horror Milk & Serial, emerged first on that platform. Mark Fischbach, director of Iron Lung, and Danny<\/a> and Michael Philippou<\/a>, who made the ripping Talk to Me, are also alumni of YouTube.<\/p>\n Fans of these directors\u2019 online work will certainly have boosted early ticket sales, but the figures accrued by Obsession and the Philippous\u2019 films indicate an appeal way beyond that specialist market. Indeed the gossip around Barker\u2019s harrowing film is drawing in cinemagoers who would normally steer well clear of horror. Might Navarrette even get an Oscar nomination?<\/p>\n Nobody went to see the work of Martin Scorsese<\/a> or George Lucas<\/a> because they were the first generation to attend film school. Few went to the films of David Fincher<\/a> or Michel Gondry<\/a> because they admired their earlier pop videos. <\/p>\n The professional origins of this younger set are already a negligible factor in their swelling appeal. \u201cI want to make movies that I would be excited to go see at the theatre,\u201d Barker said after the premiere of Obsession. The YouTubers give cinema hope. Who knew?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a new renaissance in horror, you say? 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